What It Is Read online

  New York Times Bestselling Author

  Sarah Burleton

  What It Is

  Copyright 2010 Sarah Burleton

  Dedicated to Samantha and Alyssa for their strength and unconditional love

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  I am a survivor of horrific physical and mental abuse inflicted on me by the one person in my life who was supposed to love and protect me and teach me right from wrong. I am a fighter because I did not allow my past to dictate my future and I fought for years to successfully overcome the demons left over from my childhood.

  It took me years to be able to look at myself in the mirror and see myself for the wonderful person I was. I had spent so many years being knocked down, degraded, and made to feel lower than dirt, that I had no sense of identity. The only thing I saw when I looked in the mirror was an ugly, abused child whom no one wanted or loved.

  My journey to work through my past was not easy; I had to make tough choices, let people in and out of my life, and decide once and for all if I could handle Mom in my life anymore. I pray that something in my story can give someone else some inspiration and hope that they, too, can find a way to move on from their horrible past, whatever it may be, and focus on what is present and now.

  Thank you for sharing my life with me. God bless you all.

  Chapter 1

  Can You Hear Me?

  God? Can you hear me? I’m so scared!

  I heard Mom coming down the basement stairs. I started shaking and looking over my bedroom, searching in vain for anything that would set her off: an open drawer, dust on the nightstand, or a dirty shirt left hanging on the closet door. Everything seemed in order, but by the sound of Mom’s footsteps, growing heavier by the second, I knew something was terribly wrong.

  Mom threw open my bedroom door and I immediately cringed back into the corner of my bed, curling my body into a ball to protect myself from what was about to come.

  God? Do you hear me yet? I screamed in my mind as I instinctively covered my face with my hands. As a little child, I used to envision that God would come swooping down out of Heaven with a thousand angels to scoop me up into His arms and take me off into the clouds where Mom couldn’t hurt me anymore. But God never came; not once. Mom always outsmarted Him and found ways to get to me quicker than He could.

  My earliest memories of Mom were of fear and uncertainty. Life with Mom was so unpredictable that it was impossible for me to prepare for whatever could come that day. Mom could wake up in a great mood one morning, singing and laughing as she made breakfast, and by lunch be choking me or throwing me down the stairs because I forgot to take the garbage out and it made her snap. As early as five years old, I had learned to walk around the house with my head down in fear of giving Mom a wrong look and sending her into a violent frenzy.

  The forms of physical and mental abuse inflicted on me were as bizarre as Mom’s behavior. A “normal” punishment for me included choking, hair pulling, or being kicked in the back or the stomach. I had learned over the years how to fold and curl my body to protect myself during my “normal” punishments and could curl up in a matter of seconds if I had to. What I was unable to protect myself against were Mom’s more freakish forms of punishment.

  Sometimes Mom would just look at me at a point during the day and become enraged. She would find any small reason to get mad at me, find something I had done wrong or identify a task that I had not completed to her satisfaction. One morning, Mom didn’t think I brushed my teeth well enough before school. Before I knew it, I was being dragged by my hair down the hallway to the bathroom, where Mom brushed my teeth with Comet until she thought they were white enough. Or, how can I forget the day when Mom caught me dancing in my bedroom and I ended up knocked down on the floor, where Mom proceeded to scream in my face that I was a whore, rip off my shirt, and bite my left nipple? I have a scar on my nipple to this day, just for dancing to a New Kids on the Block song in my bedroom.

  It was after these punishments, when I was left scared and more afraid than I had ever been, that I would beg for Him to come save me. I didn’t understand what I had done so wrong as a child that I deserved this treatment. As I grew older and the punishments became worse and more freakish, I began to think that I was a bad person. I must have done something horrible to deserve this treatment, to make my mom the person she was. Mom was not a drinker, she never smoked, and she didn’t do drugs, so why else would she treat me this way? I believed it was my fault and God was putting me through this to teach me a lesson, to punish me for something I had done that upset Him greatly. But something deep inside of me still believed in that childish dream of being scooped up to Heaven among the wings of angels.

  Until then I had to find my own ways to cope with Mom’s eccentric behavior. If I could sense that Mom was about to snap, I would move away from stairs or I would move out of a certain room to get away from pots and pans or anything else she could easily grab and hit me with.

  I tried to fight back at times. I tried so hard to pry her hands off of my throat; I shut my mouth so tight to avoid the Comet or the liquid dish soap that my cheeks bled on the inside from me biting them. Nothing I did ever worked; if I fought back, Mom seemed to become stronger and the beating went from bad to horrible in a matter of seconds. I felt that to survive I had to become a rag doll, something limp for Mom to knock around.

  One of my earliest memories is of me standing in the middle of the living room in the small apartment Mom and my stepfather, Richard, and I shared. I remember Mom standing in front of me, her auburn hair catching the sunlight from the pane of the sliding glass door leading out to our small balcony. It made her look as if her entire head were on fire. She was screaming and cursing in my face, and I remember her breath smelling like spearmint gum and her green eyes blazing. I remember seeing Richard making himself a turkey and cheese sandwich in the small kitchen connected to our living room, acting as if nothing were going on. I remember feeling a trickle of warm liquid traveling down my right leg. I looked down: there was a large wet spot on our light tan carpet. Suddenly, my face was being rubbed into the wet spot in the carpet: it smelled like the bathroom at school. I heard Mom scream at the top of her lungs, “She pissed on the floor!” Everything after that went black.

  About a week after this incident, I received a visit at school from a lady who worked for the Department of Children and Family Services. I don’t know if I said something to a teacher or had a mark on me from the day Mom rubbed my face in my own urine that triggered the call, but somehow, this lady knew that Mom was hurting me. I remember having a conversation about Mom with this lady and seeing tears in her eyes. Once our conversation had ended, the lady stood up, stroked the side of my face, and gave me a hug. I remember that hug; I remember it so well because I didn’t receive another one for a very long time. It was warm, soft, and her arms seemed to envelop me in love. To this day, I still get tears in my eyes when I think about it and how much I cherished that moment.

  After school that day, I walked home with a feeling of hope in my heart. I thought maybe the nice lady who visited me would go and “fix” Mom, give her a hug and make all of our problems go away. The thought of a happy family and the perfect Mom gave me an extra skip in my step as I approached the apartment building where we lived.

  Mom was standing at the top of the stairs leading up to our apartment with her arms crossed, tapping her foot. “Come here sweetheart!” she called out in a singsong voice.
The hope in my heart grew and I bounded up the steps and ran through the open apartment door, right into the nice lady who had given me a hug earlier that day.

  “Hi, Sarah!” the lady exclaimed. She knelt down in front me of and looked at me in the eyes. Instinctively, I looked away but she pulled my chin toward her. “Are you sure that what you told me today was true? You just weren’t making up stories?” Suddenly I felt scared and trapped, like a caged tiger, and all I wanted to do was to claw my way out and escape. But I had nowhere to run.

  Mom had defied the odds again. She had made up an elaborate tale about how I, at six years old, was still not completely potty trained, and I would make up grand stories because I was embarrassed about the accidents I would have. As Mom told this tale to the lady, the lady looked at me and shook her head disapprovingly. “You shouldn’t tell lies, Sarah,” she said to me. I hung down my head in embarrassment and shame, but not before seeing a glimpse of the smirk on Mom’s face.

  That visit was a guarantee to Mom that I would never speak up about the abuse I endured again. If Mom and I had a bad night and I had a mark on my neck or marks on my arms, Mom would make sure to make fun of me and call me “Peepants” before I walked out the door to school. Mom knew that she had humiliated me in front of that lady and that I would not want to relive that moment again. Mom was now free to beat me without consequence.

  Now there I was, six years later, curled up in the corner of my bed, holding my breath, and tightening my stomach in anticipation of the blows I was about to receive.

  Save me! I screamed in my head. Please, God, please save me!

  I peeked out through my fingers and saw Mom standing over me with the broom in her hand. With one fell swoop she cracked the handle over the top of my head and I instinctively threw my hands up protect myself. She pulled back and swung the broom handle again, this time connecting with the side of my face. I cried out in pain and struggled to get myself out of the bed and onto the floor in the hopes of escaping my small bedroom.

  “Where are you going you little bitch?” Mom yelled. She threw down the broom and grabbed me by the ankles. I reached out to grab the bars of my day bed but she was too fast. I was on the floor and she was on top of me before I could do anything. I started sobbing and covered my face with my hands.

  “Take your hands off of your face,” Mom screamed. I had no choice; I had to obey or face even more dire consequences. I pulled my hands away from my face and Mom dangled a piece of Kleenex in front of my eyes.

  “Do you know what this is?” she said with a sneer on her face. I didn’t know the right answer. I knew it was a trick, and my mind was racing. What did I do? Did I forget to do something? I just stared at it and shook my head no.

  Mom pressed her knees into my chest. I felt as if my heart were collapsing and my ribs were about to crack. “NO? You are a little idiot, aren’t you?” She sneered in my face. I desperately writhed underneath her to free the pressure from my chest, but the more I struggled, the harder she pressed down.

  Mom shoved the Kleenex in my face again. “What is this?” she said again with the same sneer on her face.

  “A Kleenex,” I sobbed. “A Kleenex!” Mom stood up and I rolled over onto my stomach, trying to gasp for air before Mom yanked me up by the hair and stood me on my feet.

  Mom stood in the middle of my bedroom with her hands on her hips. “You get one chance to tell the truth. Did you clean the bathroom today?”

  Oh God! I had forgotten to clean the upstairs bathroom. That was one of my chores that Mom made me do every morning before school, and I hadn’t done it. But I didn’t know how to answer. I knew whether I answered with the truth or I lied, the outcome for me would be the same. I still wasn’t sure what the Kleenex had to do with anything but I was sure Mom had her own reason to her madness.

  “Yes, I’m sure I did!” I said as I wiped the tears off of my face.

  I don’t know why I chose to lie at that moment. I was going to get beaten whether I told the truth or not. Maybe I thought that I could convince her that I had cleaned the bathroom and that I had just missed something. Maybe I thought I could outsmart her and avoid a beating all together.

  “Did you clean the bathtub?” Mom asked. Something was amiss and I couldn’t put my finger on it. I knew she had me; I knew she knew I was lying but for some reason I thought I could still protect myself and convince her that I had cleaned the bathroom.

  “Yes,” I replied rather nervously.

  Mom’s sneer got larger and her eyes narrowed into thin green slits. Suddenly I began to feel very small. The room was closing in around me and I couldn’t breathe. I was desperate to escape, but I knew any escape attempt was futile. I knew I probably wouldn’t make it out of the bedroom before she caught me and beat me to a pulp.

  “Really?” Mom said. “You cleaned the bathtub?”

  I started yelling at Mom inside of my head, What kind of sick game are you playing? You know the answer! Just end this, do what you have to do, and leave me alone! I was starting to get angry; I knew a beating was coming and I didn’t want to play her games anymore. I just wanted it all to end.

  I didn’t even bother to answer her back. I just hung my head down and waited for whatever came next. Mom stepped over to me and rubbed the Kleenex into my face, shoving it up my nose and into my mouth. I immediately gagged. It felt like the Kleenex was expanding in my mouth and sucking out all of my saliva.

  “You stupid, ignorant little bitch,” Mom said, her voice dripping with sarcasm and hatred. She dropped her hand and I immediately started pulling the Kleenex pieces out of my nose and mouth. Mom looked disgusted as I stood in front of her gagging and sobbing. “God, you make me sick,” she said as she cringed away from me and held her arms close to her body. I had never felt as ugly and ashamed as I did in that moment, standing there with Kleenex falling out of my nose, gagging and crying as Mom looked at me like I was a diseased rodent that needed to be exterminated.

  “I put the Kleenex in the tub to see if you actually did your job,” she said with a look of pride on her face, like she was the cat who just caught the canary.

  I was even more bewildered. I didn’t understand how a Kleenex had anything to do with me cleaning out the bathtub. “What?” I managed to get out as I was getting the remnants of the Kleenex out of my mouth.

  Mom dropped her arms away from her body and before I could duck, she smacked me on the back of the head. “Little Miss straight-A student, huh? You aren’t so smart! I barely graduated high school and I’m smarter than you!” she said gleefully. “If you had cleaned the bathtub,” Mom continued, “you would have seen the Kleenex in there and taken it out and thrown it away. I put it there this morning and I caught you!” Mom was so proud of herself; I think her chest even puffed out a bit, like a robin’s red chest swelling out with pride.

  I didn’t care anymore about the stupid Kleenex; it was what it was. I didn’t clean the bathroom, I lied about it, and my punishment was about to be doled out. Mom knelt over and picked up the broom she had dropped in her struggle to drag me out of bed. I hunched my shoulders over, trying to figure out a way to curl up and hide while standing up. Mom smacked the broom handle on my shoulder blades and my knees buckled. I fell to the floor and my face smashed into the carpet. I felt a warm rush pour out of my nose and I started crying once I realized I was bleeding. But the more I cried, the more she whacked me with the broom. I tried to cover my body with my hands, moving them over my body quickly to try to absorb the blows, but I just ended up getting my arms smacked over and over. Finally there was a break in Mom’s beating and I rolled over onto my back and looked up at her.

  Mom stood over me, gripping the broom like a samurai sword. Her eyes were wild and she was panting heavily. Beads of sweat dripped from her forehead and her short hair was soaking wet. She looked down at me and held the broom as if she was going to pierce it right through my stomach. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the blood pouring out of my nose into my ear as
I tensed up and waited for Mom’s next move.

  I heard Mom’s breathing become calmer, and I hesitantly opened my eyes. She put the broom down to her side and turned to leave my room. I lay on the floor absolutely motionless, scared to move or breathe. Right before Mom walked out the door, she turned around and threw the broom at me like a jousting pole. My room was so small, I didn’t have time to move, and the end of the broom hit me right in my left eye. I screamed out and grabbed my face near my eye; the pain was so excruciating that I thought I was going to lose my eye and be blind forever.

  Mom turned around and walked out. I didn’t see her do this because I was still clutching my face, trying to get the pain in my eye to stop, but I heard her laugh and I heard her footsteps move farther and farther away from my room. I sat up, opened my right eye, and picked up the gagged-up Kleenex off of the floor to sop up the blood coming out of my nose. My left eye throbbed, but I was able to open it enough to get up off of the floor and go look at myself in the mirror on my dresser.

  I didn’t recognize the girl staring back at me in the mirror. What I wanted to see was a pretty, happy girl with long hair and rosy cheeks. What looked back at me was a girl with chopped hair, a swollen eye, bruised arms, and blood pouring out of her nose. I wanted to smash the mirror with my bare hands and destroy that girl staring back at me.

  God, where were you when I needed you? Please save me! Please, I beg you!

  Chapter 2

  A Cowardly Act

  I sat in the beautiful lobby of the largest corporation in town, nervously tapping my foot and checking my watch every two minutes. I looked down and noticed a small run forming on the back of my pantyhose. Damn! I thought to myself. I tried to twist my pantyhose to hide the run, but just ended up making it ten times worse. I looked up and noticed a young lady with long red hair sitting behind the receptionist’s desk smiling at me. I smiled back and she got up and brought over a bottle of clear nail polish. “Happens to me all of the time!” she said as she handed me the bottle.